FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT BOTTLED WATER - PAGE 5

MUMBAI: Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has directed Parle Exports, manufacturers of Bisleri bottled water, not to release the product in the market till further orders. The company has failed to conduct required microbiological tests as a quarantine procedure as per Bureau of Indian Standards' (BIS) norms, FDA Commissioner A Ramakrishnan said on Wednesday. Simultaneously, the FDA Commissioner has also directed the local licencing authority, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)

NEW DELHI: Pioneer of bottled water in India, Bisleri is going for a makeover, dumping its familiar bule colour for aquagreen as it plans a Rs 100 crore investment for foray into the packaged natural water segment. "An initial investment of Rs 100 crore has been earmarked for the project on packaged natural water. We will be investing about Rs 40 crore in our two plants in Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh in line expansion," Bisleri International Chairman Ramesh Chauhan told reporters here.

NEW DELHI: Soft drinks major Coca-Cola India said on Wednesday it was considering introducing newer beverages like tea and 100 per cent juices besides expanding its bottled water producing capacity to meet increasing demand. "We are looking at all categories of commercial beverages. We want to bring high quality products," Coca-Cola India president Alex Von Behr told reporters. Behr, however, declined to divulge details about the future products nor gave a timeframe for their launch.

NEW DELHI: Pepsi has struck a deal with Delhi-based bottled water brand, Prime, under which the brand manufacturer Beltek Foods will pull out Prime bulk water from the market and transfer its institutional business to Pepsi. This deal marks Pepsi's foray into the bulk water segment, which gives the soft drink company a readymade business of about 5 lakh 20-litre jars in a year. "This is the only strategic alliance for bulk water that we have entered into so far. The rest are all greenfield projects which are being set up in top 12 cities," said Rajeev Bakshi, chairman, Pepsico India.

NEW DELHI: Pepsi has struck a deal with Delhi-based bottled water manufacturer Beltek Foods under which the company will pull out its Prime bulk water brand from the market and transfer its institutional business to Pepsi. The deal marks Pepsi's foray into bulk water which gives the soft-drinks company a readymade business of about five lakh 20-litre jars in a year. "This is the only strategic alliance for bulk water that we have entered into so far. The rest are all greenfield projects which are being set up in top 12 cities," said Pepsico India chairman Rajeev Bakshi.

NEW DELHI: CSE on Thursday refuted claims of purity in soft drinks made by PepsiCo and Coca-Cola on their Web sites and threatened to take legal action against the two multinational companies for questioning their credibility. According to CSE, the data put out by the two cola companies pertain to their bottled water brands, Kinley and Aquafina, and not aerated drinks. The present controversy relates to levels of pesticide in aerated or soft drinks and not bottled water, CSE said.

NEW DELHI: Pepsi has struck a deal with Delhi-based bottled water manufacturer Beltek Foods under which the company will pull out its Prime bulk water brand from the market and transfer its institutional business to Pepsi. The deal marks Pepsi's foray into bulk water which gives the soft-drinks company a readymade business of about five lakh 20-litre jars in a year. "This is the only strategic alliance for bulk water that we have entered into so far. The rest are all greenfield projects which are being set up in top 12 cities," said Pepsico India chairman Rajeev Bakshi.

NEW DELHI: BISLERI, the Original bottled water, is finding its marketshare watered down over time. After reigning the market for decades, Bisleri is find-ing it tough to sell extra volumes. The market size for bottled water in the first two months of the calendar year was 12.5 million cases, up by more than 30 per cent, from 9.5 million cases in the corresponding period last year. If the all-India retail figures for the first two months (Jan-Feb 2002, ORG-Marg)

NEW DELHI: With an aim to scale up volume in the bottled water segment, beverages giant Pepsi plans to roll out its Aquafina brand in small pack of 300 ml priced at Rs 5. After test marketing in Mumbai, Pepsi is now looking to launch the small-sized bottled water in other cities too. "We have recently test marketed the Aquafina 300 ml priced at Rs 5 in Mumbai successfully. We will be looking at leveraging this unique penetration driving pack further in select markets of India in 2009," Pepsico Executive Director (Marketing)

NEW DELHI: Tight margins and increased competition has forced FMCG major Nestle India to discontinue its bottled water business in India. Nestle, which is the world's largest bottled water firm, was marketing the product in India under the Pure Life brand. Nestle on Tuesday announced that a review of its water business, being conducted since last year, revealed that financial returns even in the longer term would be unsatisfactory. "Accordingly, Nestle India would be discontinuing the water business," it said.